Airbus Fails To Gain Market Altitude

January 04, 1996

PARIS — Airbus Industrie said orders for its jets fell 15 percent to 106 last year, less than half that of its rival Boeing Co., even as revenue hit a record.

The European jetmaker delivered 124 aircraft in 1995, compared to 123 in 1994. Revenue, at $9.6 billion, was 13 percent greater than 1994's $8.5 billion largely because the proportion of very large--and more expensive--aircraft was greater than in the past.

Airbus' share of the global market for civil aircraft in recent years has been about 30 percent to Boeing's 60 percent. The figures for new orders remain roughly in line with those numbers.

But after Airbus' managing director early this year said the European group was aiming to match Boeing's performance, the numbers could be seen as a disappointment. Airbus, in what many analysts and Boeing described as a fluke, beat Boeing in 1994 for new jet orders.

David Velupillai, a spokesman for Airbus in Toulouse, France, said that Airbus' goal remains to have 50 percent of global market share by 2000, and that Airbus considered the figures for 1995 "not bad."